CONCACAF Champions League Archive

On an evening just a couple of weeks out of Halloween, Toronto FC recorded which, at the time, was the club’s biggest win in its history. The 3-0 shellacking of FC Dallas ensured that TFC would go on to the knockout stages of the CONCACAF Champions League.

On that October evening, TFC fans feted Joao Plata, the diminutive rookie who set up the first goal and added two more. But, on that evening, we saw the emergence of a player whose long-term future may mean more to the club than any other Red who was on the field that night.

On that night, Doneil Henry was inserted as an emergency right back, and was asked to contend with Brek Shea’s runs down the left channel of FCD’s attack. Henry was very much TFC’s unsung hero on that night — and we can point to that evening as the moment when Henry transferred his status from “prospect” to “player.”Read the rest of this entry »

With just 5,324 fans in attendance at BMO Field and no TV broadcaster airing the game, Toronto FC’s performance in its CONCACAF Champions League opener against CD Aguila could well become an urban legend.

“Did you hear TFC won a game 5-1?”

“Yeah, sure! Was it a brace for the Loch Ness Monster and a hat trick from Bigfoot?”

As unlikely as it sounds, the Reds did indeed score five times against an overmatched Aguila side. It was just the second time in team history that TFC reached the five-goal plateau, finishing one shy of the club record of six, set in the famous “Miracle In Montreal” victory over the Impact that won Toronto the 2009 Canadian Championship.

“It’s good for our confidence,” said striker Ryan Johnson. “Going into Chicago [on Saturday], it’s a big game for us, and this helps everybody. We had a lot of opportunities on offence and this will make us more comfortable when we’re in those positions.”Read the rest of this entry »

Toronto FC’s three-game winning streak ended with a thud on Saturday as the Reds turned in arguably their worst effort of the Paul Mariner era in a 2-0 loss to the Houston Dynamo at BMO Field.

In an evenly-matched first half, all it took was one mistake to break things open and, unfortunately for TFC, that mistake took the familiar form of poor set-piece defence. Just moments before halftime, Brad Davis’s corner was tipped by Bobby Boswell on the left side over to a wide-open Calen Carr on the right, who had plenty of space to head the ball past goalkeeper Milos Kocic.

“It’s a terrible goal to concede, especially at that time,” said head coach Mariner. “That’s when you really should be on your mettle since you know it’s the last kick of the half and you’ve got to be resolute. If you flip the coin and look at Houston’s defending of set pieces, it was exemplary.”

The goal underscored TFC’s need for an experienced centre back and, while this has been a season-long (and beyond) weak point for the Reds and the MLS transfer window is closing fast, Mariner said he hadn’t made any acquisitions because he was looking for a permanent solution.Read the rest of this entry »

Toronto FC will play Santos Laguna more times in 2012 than it will play many MLS teams on the schedule.

The CONCACAF Champions League draw, announced Tuesday, saw TFC put into a group with Santos Laguna, the team that knocked them out of the previous CCL at the semifinal stage. And that likely means another visit to Toronto for American scoring ace Herculez Gomez, who scored against Toronto FC at BMO Field for his Mexican side, then played last Sunday for the Americans against Canada in Toronto. By the end of 2012, TFC and Santos Laguna will have played each other four times over the year.

Santos Laguna is the reigning Mexican champion, and has the honour of being the team that eliminated Canada’s most two successful CCL teams, TFC 2011-12 and the Montreal Impact 2008-09, from the competition. Toronto FC was tied 2-2 with the Mexican powerhouse at halftime of the second leg of their semifinal. But Santos Laguna exposed TFC over and over in the second half, and the Mexican fans celebrated what became a 6-2 rout.

Toronto FC captured its fourth consecutive Voyageurs Cup on Wednesday, winning the Amway Canadian Championship with a 1-0 win (2-1 on aggregate) over the Vancouver Whitecaps at BMO Field.

The fact that Canada’s best club team hasn’t won a game (0-9-0) in MLS competition this year sounds like a punchline about Canadian soccer, yet once again this tournament, TFC played like a team worthy of silverware. The Reds are 8-0-4 in their last 12 Canadian Championship games and now advance directly into the CONCACAF Champions League, having to no longer compete in a qualifying game to reach group play.

“We can still make something out of the season because we play Champions League now,” said forward Danny Koevermans. “The club needed this. The fans needed this. Everybody needed this.”Read the rest of this entry »

As the dust settles after Toronto FC’s 6-2 loss Wednesday on the road to Santos Laguna, no one is going to talk about the talent gap on the field — the best team in Mexico against the only team in MLS without a point.

No one is going to talk about just how incredible it was that a poor MLS team was able to get hot and get to the semifinals of the CONCACAF Champions League.

No, people will talk about the plethora of self-inflicted wounds that brought on a green-and-white flood of second-half goals in Torreon. From Julian de Guzman to Miguel Aceval to Ty Harden, TFC’s valiant effort to get to the finals of the CCL was undone by errors.

At halftime, TFC defied critics by being tied 2-2 with a team that hasn’t lost at home this season. But, by the 64-minute mark of the game, it was all but over.Read the rest of this entry »

After an intense first leg of the CONCACAF Champions League against Santos Laguna at BMO Field, Toronto FC is not going to rule anything out when it lands in Mexico Tuesday.

A post-game dust-up between the two teams resulted after defender Ashtone Morgan was head butted by Santos Laguna’s Darwin Quintero and the bad blood will surely be carried over. TFC forward Ryan Johnson told reporters after practice on Monday that Santos players were very serious in their warnings on the pitch and in the tunnel after the game.

“Coming off in the tunnel in here those were the words that were said and other words too that I don’t want to repeat but it’s going to be a tough one,” said Johnson, talking specifically of the warnings of war.

“It’s going to happen. I believe that a 100 per cent. They’re not joking around when they say that. It’s in the heat of the moment, but they’re making a promise that’s how it’s going to be when we’re down there. I believe that 100 per cent. So we go to match it – it’s a reality it’s going to happen.”Read the rest of this entry »

Toronto FC has very little margin for error. For a team that’s struggling to both consistently defend and, increasingly, struggling to score goals, one mistake is all it takes to waste a strong performance. Such was the case on Saturday, when TFC largely outplayed the Columbus Crew but came up on the wrong end of a 1-0 result at BMO Field.

The key moment of the game occurred in the 56th minute, when a Toronto surge quickly became a counter-attack after a Julian de Guzman turnover at midfield. Columbus midfielder Bernardo Anor was the point man for a give-and-go series of passes and was in position in front of TFC’s net for a cross. Reds centre back Logan Emory was in position to cut the ball off but his clearance attempt went right to Anor, who fired it in for the goal.

It was a tough error for Emory, made doubly worse since he had delivered a strong performance up to that moment. Toronto’s back line has already been thinned by injuries and international absences so, with Miguel Aceval nursing a bad hamstring, Emory — who played with the NASL’s Puerto Rico Islanders in 2011 — got the opportunity for his second start.

Emory left before speaking to reporters, but his teammates were quick to point the finger at the team’s overall failure to capitalize as the reason for the defeat.Read the rest of this entry »

Carlos Darwin Quintero, the hero of Santos Laguna's 2009 triumph over the Montreal Impact, was sent off Wednesday.

An increasingly chippy game boiled over at the end of Toronto FC’s 1-1 draw with Santos Laguna on Wednesday night at BMO Field, promising an even more heated match in next week’s return leg of the CONCACAF Champions League semifinal tie.

As the final whistle blew, an altercation between Reds defender Ashtone Morgan and Santos striker Darwin Quintero led to a full-on scrum between the two teams. Both benches cleared and, while no further blows were thrown, both sides left knowing that the final score would be settled next Wednesday.

“They already warned us that it’s going to be a war over there and we know that ourselves,” said TFC captain Julian de Guzman. “We’ve already had that experience playing at Cruz Azul and Pumas. We know what type of atmosphere it’s going to be over there and now we’ve sparked up some more fire after this game for these guys. We’re ready for it, we’re looking forward to it and the guys are prepared.”Read the rest of this entry »

Toronto FC was an underdog against the MLS champion Los Angeles Galaxy heading into the CONCACAF Champions League quarter-final, but with captain Torsten Frings organizing the team from the middle, the Reds advanced in shocking fashion.

Now up against Santos Laguna, a team that is tied for top spot in the Mexican first division, to say the Reds are underdogs is a big understatement. The Mexican club easily dispatched Seattle Sounders 7-3 on aggregate in another quarter-final including a 6-1 win in Torreon after losing 2-1 at Seattle.

“Very good team I think,” said Assistant Coach Bob de Klerk who ran Tuesday’s practice. “If you watch our game against Pumas in Mexico (last year), we had a difficult time over there, very difficult match. And they’re in the league in Mexico and higher than Pumas. That says enough.”Read the rest of this entry »